Giorgio De Chirico on Art and Painting

Giorgio De Chirico: Mystery and Creation

" To become truly immortal a work of art must escape all human limits: Logic and common sense will only interfere. But once these barriers are broken, it will enter the regions of childhood vision and dreams. "

" Profound statements must be drawn by the artist from the most secret recesses of his being; there no murmuring torrent, no bird song, no rustle of leaves can distract him. "

" What I hear is valueless; only what I see is living, and when I close my eyes my vision is even more powerful. "

Giorgio De Chirico: Metaphysical Art

" Everything has two aspects; the current aspect, which we see nearly always and which ordinary men see, and the ghostly and metaphysical aspect, which only rare individuals may see in moments of clairvoyance and metaphysical abstraction. "

" A work of art must narrate something that does not appear within its outline. The objects and figures represented in it must likewise poetically tell you of something that is far away from them and also of what their shapes materially hide from us. "

Giorgio De Chirico: Metaphysical Art

" A landscape enclosed in the arch of a portico or in the square of a rectangle of a window acquires a greater metaphysical value, because it is solidified and isolated from the surrounding space. Architecture completes nature. It marks and advance of human intellect in the field of metaphysical discoveries. "

Source
Goldwater, R & Treves, M. 1976. Artists on Art, From the 14th to the 20th Century . John Murray.